


Quinine

by MCz5



Category: Deus Ex (Video Games), Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Genre: Fic and Art, First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mild Angst, Minor Injuries, Sleep Deprivation, Unspecified Mission
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-25
Updated: 2017-07-25
Packaged: 2018-12-06 19:21:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11607309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MCz5/pseuds/MCz5
Summary: Fuck. How long could Jensen stay awake for anyway? Maybe Pritchard shouldn't have tried to match him, but this was important work. He didn't have time to fall behind.





	Quinine

Fuck. Frank rubbed his forehead tiredly, staring blankly at the screen ahead of him. How long could Jensen even stay awake for? They were going on thirty hours now and Pritchard had been struggling to stay awake for at least the last three of those. Jensen just kept powering ahead, despite having been awake for the same amount of time. The total of eight hours of collective sleep Frank had gotten over the past three days just preparing for this mission hadn’t helped, of course. He was beyond exhausted, body aching and mind sluggish while he swallowed caffeine pills like candy to make sure he he didn’t miss anything.

“Pritchard?” Jensen’s voice in his ear, sounding a little annoyed.

“What, Jensen,” he replied flatly, aiming for a sneer and falling short. His teeth ached; it was a bother to even speak.

“Did you hear what I said?”

Of course not, or he wouldn’t have asked. “Repeat it,” Pritchard demanded, sitting up straighter and reaching for his coffee. Empty. Damn.

Jensen’s reply was a little slower coming, concern creeping in at the edges. “I said I need some intel on someone.”

“Oh,” Frank sighed, then shook his head. “Name?”

Jensen gave it and he immediately set to work. There was nothing, though. None of his usual sources could give him anything. Eventually, he found the key: a tiny footnote that cracked open a treasure trove of information. Luckily, Jensen didn’t appear to notice just how long it had taken him to uncover what they needed. Frank went back to scouting ahead, turning cameras away and unlocking doors as it became necessary.

Jensen’s voice crackled through the infolink an indeterminate amount of time later. He sounded out of breath and much more annoyed than before. “How long have you been awake, Pritchard?”

“Irrelevant,” he muttered back, focussed on a line of code giving him trouble in one of the firewall’s defenses.

“Not really,” Jensen ground out, “since you didn’t tell me there were live turrets in this place.”

“Oh, shit,” Frank winced. Stupid. How could he have forgotten to mention something so obviously important? “Yeah, watch out for those.”

“Look,” Jensen grunted, hauling himself up a stack of crates to avoid a patrolling guard at ground level. “I’ve suggested it before, but you really need to trade places with someone on these long missions.”

What? Fuck that. “No, I don’t need to trade places with anyone. I was simply busy with some other work as well,” he managed to get the bite back in his words, maybe a little sharper than he intended, but there. “Though I’m quite sure you don’t know what _that’s_ like at all.”

“How long have you been awake?” Jensen repeated, nearly snarling.

“Probably as long as you,” Frank gave in with a snort. “Not that it matters.”

“Pritchard!” Jensen snapped. “I have augments to help me keep awake, you don’t. Those caffeine pills you keep eating are going to catch up to you sooner or later, and it won’t be pretty when they do.”

“Thank you for the advice, _mother_ ,” Frank huffed. “I’ll make sure to clean my room and do my homework also. Anything else?”

“I’m serious, Pritchard,” Jensen replied, and damn, he actually sounded like it. Maybe he was really, genuinely concerned about Pritchard’s wellbeing? “You can’t keep up.”

Oh. No. Jensen was just being his stupid superior self. The comment set a spark to the short fuse of Frank’s temper and he jerked upright from where he’d been leaning back in his chair, ignoring the twinge the action awoke in his spine. He pointed angrily at his monitor as though Jensen could actually see him back through the facility’s security cameras.

“I can do whatever I need to to finish this mission,” Frank snarled, lip curling. “If it needs getting done, _I’ll get it fucking done_. I am just as good as you are, and I don’t need some goddamn _handicap_ just because I’m the fucking small guy! How about I do my job, and you stick to doing yours! Does that sound like a good fucking plan to you? Because it sounds like a _great_ fucking plan to me.”

There was sweet, blessed silence for nearly a minute after Pritchard’s rant and he used the time to search out his bottle of caffeine pills. He frowned when he found it, one sad tablet rattling alone in the orange container. Shit, where did his second bottle go? He always kept two nearby for just this reason. All he needed to do was find it.

Jensen nearly startled Frank out of his skin when he finally spoke again despite being quieter, his annoyance smoothed away by vague amusement. “You’re pretty grumpy when you’re tired, huh?”

“Shut up,” Pritchard sighed, this time without heat. He left the pill in its bottle on the desk and grabbed his tragically empty mug instead. “And find a hiding spot so I can go get more coffee. I’m nearly out of pills and I can’t find my spare bottle.”

“You threw it at me the other day in my office, remember?”

Jensen was definitely amused now, but the monitors showed him moving obediently towards the nearest wall. Frank decided to ignore the tone, focussed as he was on preparing himself to get up. Ugh, everything hurt.

“I didn’t throw it _at_ you,” he huffed. “You said you needed it so I tossed it to you.”

“Quite an aggressive toss,” Jensen muttered back.

“Whatever,” Pritchard snapped, beginning to get irritated again. “Is it in your desk or not?”

“Yup,” Jensen replied, finally reaching his chosen vent and crawling inside. “Take your time, Sleeping Beauty. I’ll be here, waiting.”

“Ugh,” Frank groaned, just loud enough for the infolink to pick up, before he muted the outgoing signal.

He forced himself to stand, despite the ache that seemed to permeate his whole body. He swayed dangerously, hissing through his teeth when he caught his hip on the edge of the desk and nearly fell back down. Fuck. This walk was going to suck, but he desperately needed coffee. And more pills. And probably some more coffee.

Pritchard made his way unsteadily up the stairs and down the hall to Jensen’s office. It was so far away from everything, god, why had he ever wanted it for himself? Probably for just that reason, actually. The door was locked, miracle of miracles that Jensen was following protocol, but it was still child’s play for someone of Frank’s skill to hack it. The door slid open soundlessly, and he stumbled his way over to Jensen’s desk without bothering to turn on the lights, pulling open the drawer he was pretty sure contained Jensen’s private little pharmacy.

Yes! First try. The bottle of whiskey tucked in the back was tempting, but he couldn’t drink while there was work to do. Scooping up the first of the impressive array stashed in Jensen’s desk, Pritchard squinted at it in the weak light that spilled from the lobby and hallway. His eyes refused to focus on the tiny text, and he huffed in frustration, finally just grabbing the three likeliest looking bottles and leaving, barely remembering to re-lock the door on his way.

God, he was so tired. He still needed to swing by the canteen too, because coffee was an absolute necessity to the mission now. Frank staggered back down the stairs. As he turned the landing, however, he managed to miss the top step of the lower flight entirely. As exhausted as he was, the only thing he could do was clutch his precious coffee mug to his chest and let himself fall. Pritchard crashed painfully into the hard floor, rolling like a ragdoll down the remainder of the stairs and coming to a groaning halt a few feet from the last step. Holy hell. At least he was awake now. Too bad he was also in a _lot_ of pain. Fuck. He still needed that coffee, too.

Getting up was awful. Something felt broken. Jesus, he hoped not. Like hell he was going to the hospital even if he had the time to spare, which he didn’t. Frank swiped a hand across his forehead, pushing away strands of hair that had escaped his ponytail and waiting for the hallway to stop twisting. His palm came away wet, so he wiped it blearily on his sweater. Wait, shit, was that blood? Ugh. He’d liked this shirt too.

Grumbling to himself, he staggered into the cafeteria, hoping almost beyond hope that someone had left him at least a cup’s worth in the industrial-sized machine so he didn’t have to poke at the overly complicated single-serve _thing_ just to get sweet, life-giving coffee. Thankfully, there was a cold half-pot, probably put on by one of Jensen’s minions hours ago, and Frank stabbed at the reheat button impatiently. One of Jensen’s aforementioned goons wandered through as Pritchard was waiting for the machine to heat.

“Whoa,” the guard stopped and stared. Frank eyed him balefully through his hair. “Are you alright, Mr Pritchard?”

“Never been better,” Frank deadpanned.

The guard continued to stare as the coffee machine finally beeped. Pritchard poured himself a mug, briefly contemplating simply taking the whole carafe with him. Finally, the minion found his voice again. “What happened?”

Frank debated saying nothing, but Jensen was awfully protective of his little guards. They’d probably whine that he was rude, and then Jensen would come into the Tech Lab and give Pritchard puppy eyes. It simply wasn’t worth it.

“I slipped on the stairs.” He turned back to the hall before the guard could say anything else. “Don’t worry about it.”

By the time Pritchard got back to his office, he was almost positive something was broken. Whereas before his body had ached in a general sort of way, now it fairly screamed with pain. Both his shoulder and head were throbbing in time with his heartbeat and, as he collapsed gratefully into his chair, a spike of agony shot through his knee and the edges of his vision darkened ominously. At least he was already seated.

Frank breathed deeply through the pain, hands clenched white-knuckle around his mug and the pill bottles he’d liberated from Jensen’s office. Right. Pills. He uncurled his hand slowly, joints fairly creaking with the effort, and sorted out what he’d actually grabbed. The caffeine pills he’d originally gone upstairs for were there, but also two bottles of whatever generic painkillers Jensen preferred. Excellent. He downed two of each with a mouthful of scalding coffee and unmuted the infolink.

“You’re clear to move, Jensen,” Pritchard murmured, fingers digging into his forehead like he could push the rising migraine back with physical force.

“Well finally,” Jensen sighed, sarcasm heavy in his words. “I thought you might have fallen asleep.”

“I’m not in the mood,” Frank snapped weakly, dropping his hands again.

There was a spot of red on his desk, right in front of his keyboard. He stared in confusion until it registered. Blood. Right. He grabbed a tissue and swiped at it, then his face. A nosebleed. Just what he needed. Hadn’t there been blood elsewhere too? Frank pushed his hair off his face again and grimaced at the sticky strands. Oh, there it was. At least that was already congealing. He’d deal with it later.

“When are you ever?” Jensen snarked as he crawled back out of the vent he’d been hiding in.

“Jensen,” Pritchard groaned. He didn’t have the energy for another of their usual fights. “Not now. My head is in a lot of pain, so please just let me do my job in peace.”

He must’ve triggered a sympathy augment or something, because Jensen stayed mercifully quiet for the next half-hour, slipping through the building he was infiltrating like a ghost. The silence did nothing to help Pritchard’s headache, though. The painkillers he’d downed didn’t seem to have done anything either. He dug the heels of his palms into his eyes and breathed slowly. It was almost impossible to concentrate with the way his whole body seemed ready to fall apart at any moment.

“All posts fun,” Jensen murmured, barely audible. “And you stalled the freight?”

None of what Adam had just said made any sense in the context of his mission. “And I what?”

“What?” Jensen parroted, sounding confused as well.

Pritchard blinked slowly, the room moved like water around him. “I didn’t catch what you said.”

“Nevermind,” Adam replied, clearly uneasy about something. Frank debated asking what he was worried about, but Jensen continued first. “I’ll hurry up for your sake.”

“Hurry with what?” he mumbled back, perplexed.

There was brief pause, then Jensen sighed. “Just… hang in there.”

Pritchard spent the next hour with a head full of static. He watched dazedly through the security feeds as Jensen finished up whatever super important thing he was meant to be doing and snuck back out of the building. His monitors fell out of focus as Adam reached the extraction point and called for a pickup over their shared channel with Malik, which Pritchard had set to receive only. Without a visual to track, Frank let his screens go dark, zoning out to the hum of his computers. The next thing he knew, there was a hand on his cheek and someone telling him to wake up.

“Nn..” Pritchard slurred, trying to shift away. “‘M rea’y ti’ed…”

“I know,” the voice replied softly, the hand sliding to cup his chin and turn his face back out of his shoulder. “But I really need you to stay awake for me now.”

His brain started to catch up, and Frank groaned as he inched back towards wakefulness. “Jus’ a li’l longer.”

“Francis,” the voice sounded concerned and Pritchard realised it was Adam leaning over him, back from his mission.

He sighed contentedly. Good, that meant he could sleep. Jensen patted his cheek, however, and Frank cracked his eyes open reluctantly. Yellow-green stared down at him and it took a moment longer to realise Adam wasn’t wearing his shades. Pritchard’s hand reached up of its own volition, fingertips tracing Jensen’s furrowed brows with a questioning hum. If anything, the action made Jensen look even more apprehensive.

“What happened?” Adam eased Frank’s hand from his face and inspected the smears of red that had dried across the palm. “Why are you so bruised and bloodied?”

Pritchard stretched carefully and yawned, pulling his hand back to cover his mouth as the other rubbed tiredly at his eyes. “I fell down the stairs, that’s all.”

“That’s all?” Jensen repeated incredulously, a little strangled, like he was forcing himself to keep his volume down. “Have you seen yourself in a mirror lately?”

Before Frank could take offense, Adam’s hand slid down over his shoulder, tugging at his arm. “Come on, I’m taking you to the clinic.”

“What the hell?” Pritchard muttered, trying to sink back into his chair. “Just lemme be. I’ll shower when I get home.”

He let out an indignant yelp when Adam, apparently giving up on convincing him, simply slid one hand beneath his knees and the other around his back and lifted Frank into his arms. No matter how he complained and what he threatened, Jensen continued to to stride purposefully towards the small clinic inside Sarif headquarters. Luckily, the night-duty doctor there didn’t demand Pritchard be taken to the hospital. In fact, once they’d checked him over, they agreed that the nosebleed and sleep deprivation had definitely made him look worse off than he really was.

Under Adam’s watchful eye, they bandaged the small cut on his forehead, wrapped his shoulder and knee to ease the strain on them, and sent him away with orders to take the next two days off. Clearly no one believed his promise to do exactly as told, because the doctor handed a clean set of bandages to Jensen along with instructions not to let Frank do any work-related tasks for the duration of his enforced sick leave.

Adam brooded while Pritchard gathered what little he needed from his office, and sulked as he drove them both to the Chiron Building. Frank thought about insisting they head to his place but the silence was nice and he dozed off instead. He was vaguely aware of Jensen lifting him from the car, as well as the change of light from the gloomy underground garage to the brightly lit elevator to Adam’s dim apartment. Frank grumbled sleepily as Adam set him down on something soft, turning his face happily into the comfortable cotton beneath him.

There was an exasperated huff from somewhere above him, followed by a light weight flopping onto his chest. When Pritchard reluctantly opened his eyes, he saw that Jensen had dropped a clean t-shirt and a pair of well-worn sleep pants over him and was eyeing him solemnly from a few feet away. Frank sat up, struggling a little to gain purchase on the downy bedding. Wait, bed? Fuck. It was a good thing he was too exhausted to properly process that concept, or he’d be blushing so hard Adam would mistake it for a fever.

“Bathroom’s just through there,” Jensen murmured, gesturing to a door opposite where he stood and giving Pritchard one last unreadable look before turning away. “At least take off your coat and shoes. I’ll come check on you in a few.”

Before Frank’s muddled brain could come up with a response, Adam was gone. Pritchard stared blankly after him for a minute before deciding that not sleeping in bloody clothing was probably a good idea. He shrugged his jacket off and draped it carefully over the back of Jensen’s desk chair before shedding the rest with much less regard for how they ended up crumpled on the floor. He ignored the shirt but pulled on the sleep pants, tightening the drawstring when they tried to fall down over his bony hips, and made a quick trip to the bathroom before slipping between Adam’s ridiculously high thread count sheets, a pleased sound humming deep in his throat.

Pritchard was nearly asleep when he felt fingers combing tenderly through his hair. His eyes opened just in time to see a devastated look break over Adam’s face, covered swiftly by a blank mask when he noticed Frank was awake and watching him. Jensen backed away, and Pritchard realised he’d shed his trenchcoat and body armour at some point, likely while Frank himself was changing. He looked smaller without their bulk, silhouetted by the weak light from the windows as he was, and Pritchard couldn’t help the wave of bittersweet longing that swept over him when Adam tried to retreat.

“S’wrong?” Frank mumbled, fingers wrapped around the sleek polymer of Adam’s wrist, freezing him in the act of leaving.

“Nothing. We can talk in the morning. You need to sleep,” Jensen replied reluctantly, tugging his arm away gently.

Frank tightened his grip and pulled hard, making Jensen twist his head sharply to look at him. He sounded more awake than he’d been in hours when he demanded, “No, now.”

He struggled to sit up without losing his hold and Adam turned to push him back down with an annoyed grumble before sitting on the edge of the bed next to Frank’s hip. “Fine.”

Despite the agreement, Adam didn’t speak at first. Frank was about to tell him nevermind when he finally heaved another sigh and ran a distracted hand through his hair. “You can’t keep doing this.”

“Doing what?” Pritchard snapped back, irritation stirring sluggishly.

“This,” Jensen gestured pointedly along Frank’s body, indicating the injuries he’d received just that night. “Pushing yourself like this. Getting hurt like this. You have to stop.”

Frank’s brow furrowed but, before he could do more than twist his lips into a sneer, Adam placed a gentle hand on his cheek and rendered him speechless. “I need you, Francis.”

“Wha-?” Pritchard managed to cough, stunned.

Adam kept speaking, thumb pressing softly at the corner of Frank’s mouth and keeping him silent. “You might be able to work without me - hell, I _know_ you can - but I can’t. You’re my backup, my eyes and ears out there. I can’t do this without you.”

Oh. Right, of course. Their jobs. That’s all this was about, all Jensen cared about. “Sure, I understand,” Frank ground out, turning his head away from Jensen’s hand and swallowing hard against the anguish that clenched in his chest, more painful than anything else he’d suffered already tonight.

Adam didn’t let him look away, his other hand coming up to curl against Frank’s cheek and turn his face up while Jensen bent down, eyes bright in the dark of the bedroom. “No, I don’t think you do,” he murmured, expression soft and perhaps a little anxious. “ _I need you, Francis._ ”

There was no time to process the new inflection, no time to scoff and sneer that _yes, you’d made yourself quite clear already, Jensen, now let me sleep like the doctor ordered_ , no time to even think of pushing Adam back before he leaned in further and set his lips on Pritchard’s.

Frank inhaled sharply, unable to fully comprehend the events that had led to this, and after a moment Jensen sighed, resigned, and began to pull away. Frank protested wordlessly, a wounded noise pulled from his throat at the loss of Adam’s mouth against his own, and his arms shot up to loop around Adam’s neck and reel him back in. Off balance, Adam’s hands slid from Pritchard’s jaw to brace himself against the pillow beneath them, a startled wheeze escaping him at the sudden assault. Frank licked at Adam’s lip, swallowing the whine that action produced and slipping his tongue passed a loosened bite and into the wet heat of Jensen’s mouth. Adam pressed closer for only a moment before breaking the kiss reluctantly.

“You need sleep,” he murmured, thumb once again brushing over Pritchard’s lower lip, now swollen and slick with saliva. “We can talk more tomorrow.”

“You too. You’ve been awake even longer than me now,” Frank replied petulantly, tightening his arms, unwilling to let Adam move any further away now that he’d gotten so close. He sighed when it looked as though Adam would protest. “It’s not like your bed isn’t big enough.”

“Fair point,” Adam smiled wryly, carefully untangling himself with reassuring strokes of his hands over Frank’s skin. “I’ll be right back.”

More at ease now than he had been in years, Pritchard’s exhaustion was once again making itself known. Despite desperately wanting to give in, he fought to stay awake until the bed dipped and Adam’s arm slipped over his waist, tugging him back into a warm, bare chest. Hot breath fanned over his ear as his mind hazed over with sleep. A last rumble of sound, a soft kiss laid on his temple, and Frank was under, Adam’s quiet words soothing his mind.

“Relax, I’ve got you. Nothing can hurt you now.”


End file.
